Dr. George S. Chua l January 5, 2023 l Manila Bulletin
Based on the various news reports, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) has a target of providing as much as 250,000 free Wi-Fi sites across the Philippines, by the end of the term of former President Rodrigo Duterte. This is certainly a laudable project and yet towards the end of 2022, only 4,000 free Wi-Fi sites were active. The 2023 plan is to have a total of 9,224 free Wi-Fi sites in public places across the country.
Under Republic Act No. 10929, or the Free Internet Access in Public Places Law of 2017, the DICT, through the Free Public Internet Access Program (FPIAP) is tasked to make this happen. In 2023, 2.5 billion pesos in new funding is allocated for the FPIAP. A couple of critical questions come to mind, first, is possible and second, how much will it really cost? Taking into account that the free Wi-Fi program is set to have a minimum speed of 1.6 megabits per second, this is certainly possible at an affordable price.
The most challenging locations to provide free Wi-Fi are those places that are the least commercially viable locations for the major telcos, and therefore will probably cost the most. However, these are the same remote locations where the people need the free Wi-Fi the most. I would think the intention of the government to provide free Wi-Fi is to allow people to use the internet for sending email to their families, accessing online services of the various government agencies, education and getting the news. It would not make sense for the government to provide free Wi-Fi for people to download movies and watch Netflix.
Satellite internet broadband is already available now and has been available in the Philippines for at least the last 5 years and will work throughout the entire Philippines anytime, anywhere. There is no need to wait for Starlink, which will probably be more expensive. GSat Internet costs about 30,000 for the equipment and at about 2,000 pesos a month for the satellite internet service on an unlimited data package, subject to the Fair Usage Policy. This means that per 1,000 locations for the equipment and service for the whole year will only be 30 million pesos and 24 million pesos, respectively.
What this means is that even with the most conservative assumption that all the locations will not have cell sites or cables, to add another 5,000 sites should only cost the government 270 million pesos. Even with a 10 percent allowance, 300 million pesos tops would be enough to get the job done. If the government needs help in making basic free Wi-Fi a reality for the Filipinos that needs it the most, just give me a call.
*** (The views and comments of the author are his own and not of the newspaper or FINEX. Dr. George S. Chua was 2016 FINEX President, currently an entrepreneur and also a professorial lecturer at the University of the Philippines, Diliman. Dr. Chua is also Vice Chairman of GSat. Comments may be sent to gschua@up.edu.ph)